Businesses have to do 2 things well: (1) Raise cash opportunistically, and (2) Deploy that cash intelligently. Raising cash can be done via issuing either debt or equity. A third option is to increase “float” — get customers to pre-pay for their orders, negotiate better payment terms with suppliers, etc. Each has its pros and cons. Managers have to choose wisely. Once cash is raised (or generated via business operations), it can be used in a number of ways. It can just be piled up on the Balance Sheet waiting for an opportunity to come along. Or it can be invested into new/ongoing business initiatives and projects. Or to make acquisitions. Or to pay down debt. Or to reward shareholders with dividends or buybacks. Again, managers have to choose wisely. All these decisions fall under the broad umbrella of “capital allocation”. In this episode, we’ll go over the fundamentals — ie, how business managers should approach these decisions. We’ll also discuss how we as investors can tell whether our portfolio companies’ managers are making these decisions intelligently. Disclaimer: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Charlie Munger likes to say: All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there. In that spirit, we want to know how companies typically die, so we never take our portfolios there. In this episode, we’ll look at some of the common ways companies get into serious trouble, which sometimes ends up killing them. We’ll also go over some strategies to make our own portfolios robust to such dangers. Disclaimer: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Jim O’Shaughnessy has had a long and successful career as a “quantitative investor”, or “quant”. He’s the founder of O’Shaughnessy Asset Management (OSAM), author of the wonderful book “What Works On Wall Street”, host of the lovely podcast “Infinite Loops”, and master of GIFs on Twitter. In this episode, Jim will tell us about his Wall Street days and share with us several insights he has gained over the years: - The fundamentals of “quant” investing, - The importance of probabilistic thinking, - How the internet is just getting started changing the world of business and investing — ie, The Great Reshuffle, - And much more! Disclaimer: NONE of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Gautam Baid is the author of The Joys Of Compounding, a wonderful compendium of finance and investing wisdom drawn from a variety of sources. Gautam lives in the US. But he invests in Indian companies. He’s super excited about India’s long term economic prospects. To help US based investors take advantage of this India opportunity, Gautam is setting up a fund: Stellar Wealth Partners. In this episode, we’ll chat with Gautam about some key ideas in his book, the opportunities he sees in India, and some fundamental principles of running a fund/managing other people’s money. Disclaimer: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

As an active investor, what are all the different things we need to know? I think we need to know: - A bit of economics: the fundamentals of micro and macro economics: how economic incentives and constraints shape human behavior, the history of capitalism and its enormous power to create wealth for business owners, etc. - A bit about how businesses work: how they compound capital and generate returns for their owners, the magic of retained earnings, etc. - A bit about accounting and financial statements: how to read and interpret them, how to use them to distinguish wonderful businesses from so-so ones, how to read 10-Ks and 10-Qs, etc. - A bit of financial modeling: the basic math behind predicting and evaluating financial time-series, cash flows, IRRs, inflation adjustments, etc. - A bit of probability and decision making under uncertainty: the logic behind diversification and portfolio construction, intelligent re-balancing, the pitfalls of averages and expectations, the math of survival (Lindys vs Turkeys), statistical significance, distinguishing luck from skill, the fundamentals of intelligent risk management, etc. - And finally, a bit about our own psychology: common biases we tend to harbor, slow thinking vs fast thinking, survivorship bias, how fear and greed and envy shape our behavior in markets, etc. In this episode, we’ll go over this “curriculum” — the various topics in it and how investors can efficiently learn these topics and put them to practical use. DISCLAIMER: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

In many modern companies, Stock Based Compensation (SBC) takes a bite out of earnings reported on the Income Statement. But since SBC is added back to earnings on the Cash Flow Statement, it has less of an effect on operating cash flow and free cash flow. Also complicating the issue are the different *kinds* of SBC and the rules to account for each: RSUs, options, performance related stock awards, vesting schedules, etc. And to top it off, many companies spend a lot of cash each year to buy back and retire their own shares — while at the same time issuing fresh shares to executives as SBC. So, to what extent is SBC a “real” cost to investors? How should we think about modeling SBC and predicting its impact on our long term returns? How do we examine the relationship between buybacks and SBC? In this episode, we’ll explore some of these questions. DISCLAIMER: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

We live in uncertain and volatile times. Throughout history, stock markets have bounced around a lot. They go up and down sharply — day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Such volatility is a *feature* of stock markets, and it’s mostly outside our control. And yet — despite all this volatility — over long periods of time, the US stock market has been a tremendous engine for wealth creation. As investors, we should do our best to harness this wonderful wealth creation potential of stock markets — while at the same time not letting ourselves get affected too badly by day to day volatility. This is only possible if we position our portfolios for *survival*. That is, we should be able to comfortably survive “short term” volatility long enough to build “long term” wealth. Unfortunately, too many investors turn short term *volatility* into long term *risk*. That is, they make mistakes that cause them to lose their capital *permanently* during periods of volatility. What are some of these mistakes, and how can we avoid them? That’s the subject of this episode. Disclaimer: None of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Many companies try to take advantage of leverage. That is, they try to use “other people’s money” to boost returns for their owners. This can be a powerful strategy during good times. But it can backfire during bad times. In this episode, we’ll discuss: 1) Various kinds of leverage — for both individuals and businesses, 2) The power of leverage to transform ordinary business propositions into extraordinary ones, 3) The perils that come with various kinds of leverage — debt covenants, reduction in margin of safety, etc. And, 4) How much leverage is OK, and how to tell whether a company is employing leverage judiciously. Disclaimer: NONE of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Q: What do long term shareholders of a business ultimately care about? A: They care about how much cash they can take out of the business over time. But this may not be accurately reflected in the “Net Income” line at the bottom of the business’s Income Statement. In this episode, we’ll discuss 2 concepts that possibly reflect a business’s economic reality better than Net Income: Owner Earnings and Free Cash Flow. Understanding these concepts can give investors powerful insights into a business’s economic characteristics. This can in turn help investors, (a) identify wonderful businesses, and (b) figure out a good price to pay for them. Disclaimer: This is NOT investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Many of us are worried about inflation. We see prices rising all around us. We’re wondering if our incomes can keep up. To add to our worries, the US stock market isn’t doing too well at the moment. The S&P 500 almost crossed over into bear market territory (20% down from its high) this week. So, while our savings are losing their purchasing power (due to inflation), our investments seem to be losing value *even faster*. Against this backdrop, what are some strategies we can adopt to safeguard ourselves financially? For most of us, the path to financial independence consists of earning consistently, saving diligently, and investing these savings intelligently. When inflation is high, all 3 become difficult. In this episode, we’ll discuss some strategies we can use to position ourselves and our portfolios to weather high inflation. Disclaimer: NONE of this is investment advice. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com